You probably never heard of them. HCC Medical Insurance Services is a relatively small, obscure insurance company. The short story is that HCCMIS wanted to break out from the competition, so they created a new insurance offering to appeal to individuals involved in high-risk activities.

An interactive infographic was created to appeal to that target market, and it was rolled-out to incredible success: the blog post that contained the infographic generated more than 3.9 million views. The complete story, well told by Marketing Sherpa, provides valuable background on how this campaign was researched, tested and distributed to the masses.

All too often organizations will read about viral success stories, where an individual or small company garnered the attention of millions of viewers for their YouTube video, their blog post or Facebook event, and dream about achieving the same results. Everyone is looking for the quick fix, hoping to bypass the hard work, the long slog which leads to getting noticed. If you read the background on HCCMIS you will find that they have been developing their niche for the past ten years. They provide helpful information in their blog posts and Twitter feeds, as well as their Facebook page, where they have more than 10,000 likes.

One of the great puzzles when examining an example of great online success is the economics. Is it possible, or even desirable to try to monetize the return on undertaking such initiatives? What is the level of risk in comparison to the potential return?

Perhaps we will never be able to answer those questions, but at least recognize that we must continue to innovate, push our offerings and promotions to the edge, not just occasionally, dreaming of having that one big hit…

 

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